Silicon Valley Struggles to Add Conservatives to Its Ranks
wsj.com
wsj.com
So what I would say is the default cultural assumptions have changed from what they used to be and are now diametrically opposed to much of the country in such a way that if you are on the outside looking in, it appears "tolerant" because it is a better place for some groups of people that would be ostracized elsewhere. Meanwhile if you are from the inside looking out, you probably don't see that what you call tolerance and liberalism is in fact just a different kind of intolerance and conservatism because it is not human nature that is different in the Bay, just the goal posts.
Or to put it another way, what seems liberal and/or progressive to others is simply "normal", the "default", sometimes even "traditional" or "conservative" here. Especially in San Francisco, Alameda County and some of the more populous counties (quarter of the pop in LA County alone yo!), if not quite all of the State. The scale is just different. Spend 25 years living here and visiting certain parts of the country really will make you feel like you're in a foreign country because you (hypothetically) and I (actually) grew up in a bubble.
I am interested in what topics/opinions he believes are out-of-bounds.
- illegal immigration
- importance of "pipeline" on workplace diversity
- effectiveness of company policies to foster diversity
A side effect is that open conversations are now almost silenced in a company which once prided on open culture. People now speak out only in smaller cliques of their friends, and this is having a massively negative impact on company culture.
In any case, these topics have high emotional stakes, but are completely subjective. Unlike talking about your favorite movies, which is also a subjective topic, but with much less emotional investment.
I have to ask; why do you want to talk to your coworkers about this stuff? What are you going to get out of it? Are you trying to feel justified about an opinion you hold? I just have no idea why anyone would want to talk about this with people they have to get along with everyday.
I think from the comments on here (many done under unattributable usernames) it is clear to see why most stay far under the radar. There is a very real fear of negative career consequences in the tech industry for having views that are mainstream in broad swathes of the country that so enables the tech industry's success.
While some blowback may be manageable for someone with demonstrable skills and few longterm commitments, it has a chilling effect for those with families and mortgages.
And for those who think that none of their peers voted for the US president, I can tell you that you are likely mistaken. For those that think that conservatives can't innovate or fit into the tech industry, I counter that there are very successful people all over the industry, but given that there is little upside and high risk to mentioning it publicly, it is understandable that one would have a different perception.
Not because you're conservative, but because you're an idiot and are making your coworkers super uncomfortable. The same would happen if you went around saying "people who wear red jackets are inferior" when one of your team members wears their favorite red jacket to work everyday.
Given that workplace violence is a thing that happens, and the high emotions business sometimes gets us in, you definitely made a mistake telling coworkers you own a gun.
I'll stand there and support your right to identify however you'd like and i'll support your right to express your views as your legal right, but who the hell are you tell me that acceptance should only apply to your stance that I should have just kept my mouth shut?
This right here is the exact behaviors that are driving Conservatives further right and frustrates those of us in the middle or slightly left to start swaying the other way.
Driving a vehicle is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Taking medications is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Drinking alcohol is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Partaking in recreational drugs is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Partaking in illegal drugs is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Swimming in a pool is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family. Cooking chicken you bought at Whole foods is a risk to yourself, coworkers, and family.
See the absurdity in a generalized statement?
For instance, all the sex-and-ethnicity choosing going on. Totally without scientific merit, yet the left behaves as if it's science.
The pendulum swings both ways. Trump's election is a direct result of left-side hysteria and over-reach.
Are you suggesting that "transracialism" is treated as science or supported by anything approaching the mainstream left?
I think this is part of why some conservatives find themselves unwelcome. Being outwardly disparaging toward people does not make you friends.
It may be harmless (as you correctly point out), but it is not tethered to reality.
Rachel Dolezal (by far the most famous case that I know of) was pilloried by the left for cultural appropriation:
https://www.google.com/search?ei=x-UhWuymEIyojwOc6Kz4Bw&q=ra...
Shouldn't there be universal condemnation?
"The left" is not a spec or rigidly defined ideological canon that all "leftists" conform to. As with "the right", "capitalists", "socialists" or any other political or cultural generalization, actual "leftists" can comprise a spectrum of acceptance or disagreement.
Remember, Trump was a Democrat for a long while before he was a Republican. (IMHO, he became a Republican solely because it was the easier party to hijack at the time.)
i.e. If you agree with Barack Obama's stated position on this issue from 4 years ago.
Do we base morality on what politicians think is the best stance to get them elected?
The argument isn't that you "have to think this way because the government said so" it's that by airing viewpoints at work you're liking going to cause problems. As much as you might care a gay coworker likely has more reason to care, and they would view it as stomping on their rights.
"In interviews, many tech employees and executives said they believed conservative views on issues like tax policy and regulation are welcome in Silicon Valley. But conservative views on social issues like gay marriage, civil rights and immigration meet more resistance ..."
While many of those issues seem like fair game in a (presumed) secular business environment, I don't see how an expressed conservative viewpoint that actively opposes civil or equal rights can be tolerated in a workplace. It is a necessary basis for any sort of collegiality and cooperation.
At the same time, I can imagine people freely saying disparaging things about conservatives (it's hard for me to resist sometimes) that would make for a hostile environment. I'd hope large SV companies could occasionally remind employees of that fact.
Some people feel The Wall 'actively opposes civil or equal rights'. Or transgenders in the military. Or etc, etc etc...
Many conservatives feel that conservative viewpoints on hot topic issues are rational decisions. They're often not out to 'actively oppose civil or equal rights'.
Why? Maybe I am misunderstanding, but you and the person you replied to seem in violent agreement.
Maybe it's just zero tolerance for inaccurate name calling.
If you are talking about race or gender than yeah, the "conservative" position is terrible and you would rightly face consequences for your awful beliefs.
If you're talking about telling your coworkers that you voted for Trump, well, I don't think that's something that ought to be taboo but he did explicitly embrace the terrible beliefs I mentioned so I think that explicitly renouncing them wouldn't be a bad idea.
"We should change the immigration process to favor skilled workers" - you're fine.
"We should deport anybody who immigrated illegally" - you're in the danger zone.
"We need a ban on immigration from Muslim countries" - you are horrible and you deserve whatever consequences you suffer.
"Build the wall" - you're an idiot.
I'm on the outside, so my the reading I did probably doesn't represent the full situation. I asked that question because I was genuinely curious - the resources I found seemed to indicate that constructive termination could still constitute wrongful termination in CA.
By the way, if you have a specific resource you want me to read, I'd love to have the link.
Therefore (again generalizing) if (likely net benefit of winning, adjusted for risk of losing) - (cost of suit) <= (benefit of settlement - lower cost of counsel to get to a settlement), and a similar relation for employer that takes into account PR risk-adusted costs as well, rational-actor parties tend to settle, with money flowing to the exiting employee and conditions binding the parties. This happens often, and is cloaked by non-disclosure terms almost always.
* Making college education free for US citizens is a terrible idea.
* We've taken the idea of "sanctuary cities" way too far.
* Gun control is a bad idea
These are a few conservative ideas that I think plenty of people would be afraid to express in a workplace that is disproportionately filled with ardent "liberals".
Yeah, I mean those aren't necessarily popular opinions. So if you express them you might find a bunch of people who will vigorously argue against you. If that's upsetting to you, I don't know what to say.
I really, really doubt you're going to get fired. Unless you're expressing these opinions in very inappropriate ways. It's a workplace, after all.
Cause the former is a problem. The latter, meh. If you can't figure out how censor yourself at work that's your problem. I felt like calling out a coworker for recent conduct I think was incredibly petty, immature, and damaging to a relationship with another team. I think he deserves to be called out, but it's just not worth it.
I do think you should be able to say some of this stuff in a casual conversation at lunch, or whatever. You have to be aware of your audience though.
However, saying that the idea of sanctuary cities has been taken too far "because immigrants are rapists", as a random example, _should_ perhaps get you fired, especially since it's likely that some of your colleagues are in fact immigrants and saying something like that is a direct insult to them.
I think the state of politics in the US today is such that many (though certainly not all, as you've outlined) "conservative" ideas have strong ties to xenophobia and racism, whereas "liberal" ideas can be more freely discussed because they are about inclusion, rather than exclusion. And that's the way it _should_ be. Saying "I support giving more rights to group X" is not in general harmful to other groups, and is not the moral equivalent of saying "I support taking away rights from group X", which is actively harmful to group X.
Nice strawman there! I think that the idea of sanctuary cities has been taken too far, that the illegal immigration should be curbed and that democrats are just exploiting this for their political gains. I am also a non-white immigrant myself. But discussing my views openly would definitely get me in a few discussions with HR, if not outright fired.
These and other fundamental Christian world views are very 'unwelcome' in IT on both coasts of the US.
As an atheist I do think there is too many people in tech who have a tendency to shit on religion, without considering anyone else around. I agree, there is no god. Lets not go around calling anyone who believes in it idiots, because no good comes of that.
But I also won't put up with some religious lecture. You're the jerk in that situation.
> That marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.
You're expressing beliefs that others should have their rights taken away. That's unacceptable.
Somehow that doesn't apply to liberals when conservatives talk about the right to own and carry a gun. I find the hypocrisy sickening.
The right of two people to have rights and protections under state/federal law regardless of their genders is in no way similar to the right of someone to own a weapon.
Neither do I.
I don't agree with his viewpoint, but consider it from the other side.
There's two parts to marriage for a lot of people, and this gets overlooked. In the eyes of the law, marriage is a property arrangement, more or less. You get married, you merge assets, and you use your merged assets to fund your collective livelihoods and hopefully have some children. In the past, you could even take it as a given that across the middle class you would have a mother there to tend to the household economy (gardening, sewing, shopping, etc.) and tend to the children. The father would work a fairly predictable 9-5 job and basically, bring home the bacon. Sure this wasn't the case for everyone, but it was true enough across a vast swathe of the population for long enough that it came to shape the default expectations of our society. Probably it was really only the case for a few generations at most. Familial, social, and even religious ties held people together in a productive fashion.
Then things changed. Never mind why, the real reason why whatever it is doesn't even matter for this discussion, but things changed. Society isn't as stable as it seems, the middle class is shrinking, both parents tend to work now, etc. So the portion of society that could take for granted that their familial, social and religious ties would hold the very fabric of society, or at least their own county together worried that would no longer be the case. Everyone wants what is best for their kids and country, right?
So let's come back around to the second part of marriage: religious ceremony.
Atheists like you and I can freely dismiss that part of marriage, but for a long time, at least in Christian nations as I won't comment on other beliefs, the default view was that when you got married, you were bound in the eyes of God. There are a lot of people that still take that seriously, and it is easy to miss because atheists don't have to care about religious ceremony. Marriage is almost an artifact of the past other than the fact that a lot of our laws concerning property and tax codes are written with the assumption of marriage. Maybe we continue to get married simply because we as people are still so collectively locked in our ways that we still strive to make some kind of ceremony out of it.
Is it irrational that people still hold to that view so seriously though? I wouldn't argue, I mean, I don't have a religion for several reasons but those are besides the point. I think it's irrational, yet so many of the people that make up our society, really the foundation of our nation, hold to their beliefs so strongly, sincerely believe them that simply arguing that it is irrational is entirely besides the point. They have faith, traditions, a moral code, and beliefs that marriage is between One Man and One Woman and while the benefits and tax advantages bestowed upon husband and wife are nice, it is the civil portion, the property arrangement that is almost besides the point. They'll take it rather than leave it, but it isn't the foundation of their marriage.
Rewind a few years ago, and marriage wasn't a civil right that two gender conforming homosexual people had with each other. It was a right granted to them by either statute, constitutional amendment or in the end, a court order from on high from SCOTUS itself. A civil institution.
A civil, material institution treading upon matters spiritual. You don't have to agree, I don't have to agree, but the world I want to live in is one where people can express their viewpoints regardless of whether I agree or you agree or the masses agree. If social liberalism means anything anymore, I would want it to mean that. It is still important to understand that is only a civil rights issue for one side of this debate.
No.
We do not need to consider both sides to every issue. Some thing are wrong.
Both these issues are covered by https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Would you mind reading those rules and following them when commenting here?
(Unless you acted on that belief in a way that hurt a coworker.)
No one is arguing that the OP shouldn't be allowed to _hold_ this opinion, privately and in his own head. I do argue that the _act_ of sharing the opinion with a colleague at work is harmful, since by doing that the OP is revealing that he does not respect the identity of his colleagues, and further strongly implies the OP will do whatever is in his power (by way of voting for political candidates, for example) to limit the ability of his colleagues to have rights based on these identities.
I don't think you have to physically attack someone to be actively harmful to them and their existence.
Anti-abortion views might get you some pushback, but you probably won't be fired unless you are harassing coworkers about their abortions.
It gets a bit tricky when you get into some other traditional conservative views. The problem is that there are positions shared by conservatives and racists, and while you can certainly hold some of the views without being actually racist, it is tricky.
Anti-immigration stances might get you into trouble if you express them in terms that appear racist. If you say you don't want muslim or mexican immigrants, you are going to find yourself in trouble.
If you are against gay rights, you are going to get into trouble. You can say it is unfair, but if your political views involve wanting to deny rights to your coworkers, you are going to have a problem.
Bottom line, there are certain political views that are just wrong. If you are against rights for some of your coworkers or if you have racist beliefs, you can't expect to not have consequences.
In California it is:
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/california-employmen...
As a brown person, do you know what my first thoughts of someone who describes themselves as "conservative" are? I'll give you a hint: it has nothing to do with fiscal policy. You can't blame people for not wanting to be made uncomfortable in that way.
Several of my friends are conservatives - and they span ethnicities, religions and economic classes. I find conversations with these folks quite insightful and fun. A bit harder to find these folks in Silicon Valley but not impossible. ps: I'm brown too :)
What I like is that these sites help me understand the other side of questions like gun rights/control. I may not agree with it but I'm less belligerent about my views because I appreciate their sincere alternative viewpoints.
Precisely. We need conservatism. We need that part of our conscience which says "well, hold on a minute", or "hey we can't afford that" in order to function properly as a democracy. It's loss is a tragedy, and the corruption of those ideals over the past 30 years into what it has become is breaking our country.
I disagree at this point honestly.
course all I've ever seen of american conservatism is the current republican party.
People who remember the 70s and 80s remember a different political environment.
When things seem overwhelming, I like to remind myself that in the 60s things seemed worse. (To me, the 80s and 90s were very good.)
Why wouldn't they be? The "crazy" ones aren't being elected by no one. They rose to power because voters embraced them. If you don't want to be lumped in as crazy then quit supporting crazy.
> potentially causing them to actually embrace the more extremist ideologies.
I really, really hate this argument. It's just trying to absolve people of their responsibility for choosing white nationalism and other reprehensible ideas. If you joined up because some arrogant jerk offended you one day then maybe you weren't a very good person to begin with.
Besides, how many liberals do you see pushing hateful ideologies and communism because they are sick of being called arrogant elites?
I don't disagree that the Republican party has been hijacked. Personally, I am non-partisan and generally will vote for whichever candidates lean more towards a liberal-libertarian platform, be they R or D. Lately, that's been a lot more D than R.
>If you joined up because some arrogant jerk offended you one day then maybe you weren't a very good person to begin with
Hatred and ostracization make people go to very dark places. A lot of people are lumping people who ideologically believe in lower taxes and fewer government services with white supremacists. I'm obviously not condoning people going to those places, but acting like putting these people on blast and calling them awful because their beliefs partially overlap with those of a genuinely awful group of people is at the least not constructive.
Personally I think who you vote for is a damn good indicator of who you are as a person.
I'm curious though why such observations are made for SV only, why don't publicly social conservative organizations e.g Hobby Lobby, Chic-fil-a etc get asked similar questions? It would be safe to assume that things like same sex marriage, contraception would be considered out of bounds there.
Is it just because of the size/reach of the tech industry ?
I mean if there aren't any conservatives now, it means it got big without them. Why should it add such people? This would only lead to its demise.
Seems like Silicon Valley would very much suffer in the long term from a lack of multiple viewpoints. Is this not what the call for diversity aims to achieve?
We should be careful not to dehumanize our political opponents. That way lies violence.
The world was run long enough by conservative people.
Is a christian-conservative who pushes that agenda.
"With all the accusations of sex assault [...] we're soon going to remember why sex was traditionally enshrined in marriage"
"It's possible that sex is so dangerous that it has to be encapsulated within a socially-sanctioned construct"
He spreads the notion of cultural marxism, an idea which is anti-semitic in it's origin.
He wanted to start a site with a list of courses and professors and disciplines that should be avoided, for pushing "radical leftist agendas".
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/11/10/u-of-t-profs-pro...
He's a psychology professor, but frequently espouses junk philosophy. Just look at responses on /r/philosophy.
While not a Conservative, I was unable to discuss what many would view as centrists ideals, without being berated about how I was this or that. Political extremism is a thing on both sides.
Also it's kinda interesting that a place that doesn't favor conservatives is much more successful than the rest of the world.
I mean if there aren't any women now, it means it got big without them. Why should it add such people? This would only lead to its demise.
But under no circumstances would I legitimise what currently passes as a "conservative" in the US by associating with them.
Just take the current Trump vs all of Britain disagreement as an example: I think Brexit is among the worst ideas, ever. Yet I would never turn down the opportunity for a tea with Theresa May, because we share a fundamental understanding that it's probably a bad idea to endorse xenophobic hate groups by retweeting their fake propaganda.
Confusing Donald Trump with a conservative is a mistake.
As for Evangelical conservatives, I'd suggest you have a few conversations with some and then form an opinion. So long as you are respectful and make reasonable assertions, I am sure you'll come away with a different point of view.
Is this a tech problem or a Californian city problem?
So yeah if you live in a super liberal place people are going to have a liberal bias. I was born and raised in the south, it has a conservative bias, and I don't pretend that it's magically going to go away. I think if you're aware that your political positions are a far deviation from the norm for your area it's probably wise to not be loud about it. Especially if your position is somewhere along the lines of "My coworker shouldn't be here for reasons that are a protected class". They'll fire you just to CYA, independent of whether they agree with you or not.